China Bound and Cocooning

We leave in just a couple days!! Please pray for our trip, safety and health. Pray for Gabe's heart as his world is about to be turned upside down.  Pray for our kids at home, we've never been away from them for so long. I'm sure it will be harder on me.  Pray for my awesome sister who volunteered to move in and stay with our kids and dogs while we're gone, we can't thank you enough, Heather! Seriously! You're the best sister a girl could have!

We feel so amazingly blessed by you all. Thank each and every one of you. For praying, cheering us on, for kind words, donations, love and support. We could not have done this alone.  God has been in every detail of this journey from the very beginning, long before we found our son, said yes, and took a leap of faith. When God first put special needs adoption on my heart I didn't know if it would ever be a reality in our lives, I didn't know if it would be possible, but here we are, getting ready to hop on a plane. I can hardly believe it!

"Cocooning"
When we come home with Gabe we will be staying at home as much as possible for a couple months.  It's what they call "cocooning" in the adoption community.  We know that you all have been waiting to meet him and love him already but he will need to adjust to having a parents and a family. This time will be important for us to bond with him and for him to attach to us. We will have short visits at our house for friends and family so don't worry. Thank you for understanding.

I want to take a minute to thank my mom and dad, you guys have gone above and beyond helping us financially with this adoption. You took the stress of paying bills away so that we could enjoy this trip. You don't know how much you have blessed us. Love you guys so much!

The next time you hear from me we'll have Gabriel. Wow! I'm not sure if I will  post on the blog while we're in China, but I will be posting in our "Waiting 4 Gabe" Facebook group. If you haven't joined yet, hurry up! I'm changing the privacy to secret tomorrow.

Counting down the days...

It feels really good to not have anything to report about our adoption process because everything is done! We're just waiting to get on a plane.  At the same time, I'm sad for a whole bunch of people that are still waiting for travel approvals. There is currently a glitch in the system affecting TA's, it would be so hard to be at the  end of the process and stuck at the very last step.  Hopefully it will be resolved soon.

We got to Skype with Gabe on Sunday evening.  We're so grateful to have such a wonderful opportunity. We should be scheduling another call soon.
Some things we learned about him during the call are:

- He wakes up early, about 6:00-6:30. Perfect! We do too, during the school year.
- He does not take a bottle, he uses cups with handles. I need to get some of those.
- He sticks his tongue out when he's really excited.
- They have dogs at Bethel and he doesn't seem to be afraid of them. Hooray!
- He likes Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and Row Row Row Your Boat.
- He knows a few signs: more, play, all done.
- He's active. He was all over the place during our call.
- He's absolutely adorable! But we already knew that :)

We're waiting on a final report all about our little guy. I'm super excited to learn even more about him.

Please pray that we will be able to visit Bethel before Gabe is transferred back to his province. I'm still waiting for details about this and we leave in less than two weeks.

We're getting closer to filling up our puzzle. Consider sponsoring a piece for only $10
https://www.youcaring.com/adoption-fundraiser/waiting-4-gabe/341337